51 pages • 1 hour read
Megha MajumdarA Burning
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Jivan
Jivan is a young Muslim woman whose life is dismantled and destroyed by an unjust and inequitable system. Jivan is kind, demure, and a hard worker. She tries to help her mother with her ailing father, stays out of trouble, and even volunteers to teach English to those who are even more disadvantaged than she is. These traits make Jivan’s arrest and conviction all the more surprising and ironic.
As a poor Muslim girl, Jivan’s education and career opportunities are limited, and no matter how kind or ethical she is, she will always be judged for her religion. In the constant battle between Hindus and Muslims and India, Jivan is nothing more than her religion, at least to the outside world. When Jivan is arrested and her trial becomes national news, Jivan has few friends who can attest to her character. Jivan’s loneliness is highlighted by her online life; socializing on Facebook is one of Jivan’s only outlets for human connection, but one that ultimately ruins her life.
Majumdar uses Jivan’s character as a symbol of the injustice inherent in society; Jivan is used as a scapegoat because the government knows no one will ultimately care about Jivan, as the caste system is deeply woven into the fabric of Jivan’s society. But Jivan’s character also criticizes a problem found in all societies, not just the one in India. When Jivan is arrested, the media coverage of her trial is sensationalized so much so that Jivan’s whole persona is twisted by public perception. In most societies, not just in a caste system, contemporary media can distort fellow human beings to the degree that their peers dehumanize and vilify them. Jivan and her tragic fate demonstrate how unjustly society treats those deemed unworthy of basic empathy.
Lovely
Lovely serves as a foil to Jivan. While Jivan’s life crumbles, the terrorist attack on the train indirectly launches Lovely into fame and a new stratosphere of social clout. Lovely’s story is an unlikely one of significant sudden upward social mobility, a direct challenge to Jivan’s story of rigid class distinctions. Lovely therefore represents another side to India, the contemporary India that loves celebrity and is interested in new voices and stories. It is almost incredible that a hijra would gain such positive fame, and though it comes hand-in-hand with Jivan’s downfall, the reader roots for Lovely. Lovely’s positivity, ambition, and genuine self-love enable her to seize opportunities, believe in others as much as she believes in herself, and stay true to what makes her unique.
What happens to Lovely is in some ways pure luck, but the reader senses that Lovely’s good fortunes are repayment for her trials and tribulations. Lovely’s success crescendos as Jivan’s fate is sealed, heightening the melancholic tone of sadness and happiness for the two main characters. Ultimately, Lovely symbolizes the resilience of people with nothing to lose. As Jivan’s story details the perils of preconceived judgment, Lovely’s story emphasizes how important it is not to judge people based on assumptions about their character, their appearance, or their beliefs.
PT Sir
PT Sir is a character who exists in juxtaposition to Lovely and Jivan. While Jivan is imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, PT Sir commits fraud in the court system to benefit himself and his political party. While PT Sir can be seen as a villain, especially in comparison to Lovely and Jivan, he is a more complex antagonist than he first appears. PT Sir is not inherently a bad person, and his thirst for power begins slowly but escalates quickly. He is devoted to his wife and still cognizant of his role in society, even as he gains prestige and influence. Because PT Sir does bad things but doesn’t quite fall in to villainy, Majumdar uses his character to challenge the reader. PT Sir’s desire for power has less to do with the ethics of his chosen party and more to do with his dissatisfaction with life as an underappreciated schoolteacher. Majumdar warns that anyone can be seduced by small rises in power, that the reader is just as susceptible to the idea of a new and exciting life, even at the cost of others’ safety and well-being.
PT Sir is so invisible in his world that he doesn’t even have a proper name; PT refers to “physical training,” and “sir” is the name of respect given to male teachers. Therefore, PT Sir never develops an identity beyond his job, even as he strives to escape that namelessness by sacrificing his morals for the party. Majumdar also uses PT Sir’s character to criticize Indian politics and the prevalence of fraud, grift, and injustice against innocent people. This is the same criticism that Jivan makes of the government in Chapter 1, after the terrorist attack. While PT Sir watches Jivan’s trial with haughty judgment, Majumdar creates a parallel between the two characters that demonstrates that PT Sir is in fact worse than Jivan as he symbolizes the very corruption and injustice that Jivan protests and is punished for.
